Grimm: Alive and well, but emotions still raw

Raw. That's how I feel. Everything is raw. I can't shake the feeling, whether I'm at my house in Washington or at our apartment now in Morton.

My emotions are up, down, up, down. One minute, I'm ecstatic my family is safe. Seconds later, I feel the weight of an EF-4 tornado. It's frustrating. On Thursday, I walked through a store to buy some essentials when a stranger said something I didn't like. After boiling over for about a minute, I shouted for all in the store to hear, "Let's see how you're doing after a tornado hits your home."

To the stranger, and all that were in that store, I apologize. I'm not like that.

I'm raw.

My story started about 11 a.m. Sunday. I had worked the night before at the Journal Star, and I was sleeping in like I usually do. A little before 11, I heard the weather radio go off and my 7-year-old son, Zach, came running in. We grabbed the radio, turned on the TV, cranked up the volume and ran to the basement. I made several trips up and down grabbing important things, like our dog.

We've taken shelter countless times. It's normal in central Illinois. I remember doing it as a young boy in Mason City. Usually in the spring. Maybe it's because I'm looking back on it now, but this had a different feel. When I heard the Washington sirens blaring, I knew we were in trouble.

But time seemed to move slowly. My memory is unclear on exactly what happened and when. I heard the weather radio announce the tornado had dissipated. I remember thinking that we had made it through another storm. I even climbed a few steps up.

Then the sound intensified, and I heard loud banging and glass breaking. I told Zach we were getting bad hail. We could hear things hitting the house and trees snapping. At this point I knew it wasn't hail. Zach was calm. So calm for a little boy. He had our dog and was holding tight.

Then it was gone. We emerged from the basement and found the inside of the house was intact. I texted my wife that we were OK and the house was standing. She was at her school in Pekin preparing for parent-teacher conferences the next week. From a text she had sent, I knew she had to seek shelter in the basement of the school. I sent my text and received the one saying she was OK.

We found glass was everywhere inside the house. All of our windows were blown in. I heard a banging on our front door and it was a neighbor I've never seen before, checking on our condition. I couldn't open the door and just yelled that we were OK.

We dressed and made our way outside. This is when realization of what happened sank in. I looked at my house and it was beaten up. I looked down my street and saw many houses that were in the same shape as mine.

People started to emerge, dazed like myself. Within seconds, I looked down the street and there came my sister-in-law, her husband and their two kids. For a second, they looked just like I've seen them hundreds of times: Out for a leisurely evening stroll. The kids were running and yelling. I don't remember what they were saying. I got to my sister, and she calmly told me, "It's all gone." It took me a few seconds to figure out what "it" was.

Her home was gone.

They had been in the basement. The tornado went directly through their house above. My brother-in-law could feel the wind pulling them. They had to move debris off the stairwell to get out.

I asked about my mother- and father-in-law, who live next door. Their house was gone as well. My mother- and father-in-law were in St. Louis for the weekend and were safe.

We took all the kids back to my house to stay with my sister-in-law. My brother-in-law and I went down the street to try to help others.

I remember jogging and then tripping on a piece of wood in the road. I fell face-first, but was unhurt. I got up and saw wood everywhere with nails sticking out. I also smelled gas everywhere.

All of a sudden, I looked around and realized the true impact of what had happened. Houses gone. Cars thrown around. Huge pieces of wood everywhere. Trees looked like toothpicks.

My brother-in-law and I walked through the debris. People were out everywhere doing the same thing. This couldn't have been more than 10 or 15 minutes since the tornado. We kept climbing and shouting into homes.

Soon, I had no idea what street I was on. It seemed like I had walked a mile. My brother-in-law went into a basement and came out with a backpack. Somehow, we were back at his house two blocks from mine. I looked over at my mother-in-law's house and there was a tan van sitting in the middle of their living room, right where the fireplace used to be. I won't forget that image. Like many things I saw, it's burned into my head.

I guess I expected to see people covered in blood and people yelling and screaming. I saw none of that. There was a group trying to free one man who may have had broken a leg. That's it.

People were calm, maybe numb. People were happy to be alive.

The next couple of hours went fast. I was soaked from a hard rain that followed the tornado. I was worried about my wife, who I hadn't heard from since I received a text message from her right after the tornado. I didn't know what to do. I just stood in the street looking.

I heard "Chris!" and my wife came running. She was crying. It was about 1:30 p.m. She had driven back from Pekin but had to walk through the neighborhood before getting home.

I remember the hug we gave each other. I won't forget that, either.

After a while, we grabbed what we could and walked to Washington Community High School, where my wife and her uncle had left their cars. We piled into the cars and drove to East Peoria, where we stayed the night with relatives.

As bad as Sunday was, I was in a good mood that night. We were alive.

I will remember Monday as a day from hell. Everything had sunk in. Long walks into the neighborhood. Conflicted feelings of joy, anger, frustration, rage. Raw emotions.

We weren't allowed onto our street legally. Twice I walked two miles in and found ways to carry stuff out. I'm a rules follower. But Monday was chaos. Volunteers were allowed in. Contractors were allowed in. Residents were not. I don't know if I've ever felt more anger.

Monday was also my first day of survivor's guilt. I didn't really know what I was feeling at first. My family owns three houses in the Trails Edge subdivision. Two of the three houses are gone. Mine remains.

When people ask me how we are, I say, "We are standing. It could be a lot worse. We were very lucky."

That's true. But what I'm having to accept throughout this week is that while my house is better than many, it's still not good. Survivor's guilt is real, and I'm sure it's not going away anytime soon.

Many have offered to help us with the cleanup. But accepting help is hard, and I'm afraid there are others who need it more.

This week we've picked through tons and tons of debris at my wife's parents' house.

Sifting through the debris is frustrating. You could go 10 or 15 minutes lifting hundreds of pounds of wood and metal and not find a thing. Then you kick something over and you find an old family photo.

I found a photo of my son in Spider-Man makeup from a couple of years ago. It was dirt-covered and hidden in the debris. I've seen that photo a thousand times hanging on a wall. Lifting that picture and looking at it gave me such joy. It was such a little thing, but it was fantastic.

Rain came late Wednesday afternoon and cut short the search for more treasures. It was too dangerous to continue. We loaded up as many plastic totes of things we had found and left the area.

On the way back to my aunt and uncle's in East Peoria, we heard on the radio that residents wouldn't be allowed back in on Thursday and debris would be cleared from the road that day. My in-laws turned around and placed the remaining totes on the street side of their sidewalk. Safe and sound.

On Thursday night we found out at a meeting at Washington Community High School that debris was cleared from sidewalk to sidewalk. After the meeting, we checked for the totes. They had been thrown away.

Anger, pain, resentment. More raw emotions. Up, down, up, down.

Chris Grimm is a Journal Star copy editor and page designer. He can be reached at 686-3086 or cgrimm@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @Grimm643.